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Google Inc's Chrome web browser overtook Microsoft Corp's Internet Explorer (IE) to become market leader globally for the first time last Sunday, web analytics firm StatCounter said on Wednesday.

"While it is only one day, this is a milestone," said Aodhan Cullen, StatCounter's chief executive.

"At weekends, when people are free to choose what browser to use, many of them are selecting Chrome in preference to IE."

On March 18, Chrome was used for 32.7 percent of all browsing, while Explorer had 32.5 percent share. When people returned to their offices on Monday, the IE share rose to 35 percent and Chrome's share slipped to 30 percent.

Amazing that Microsoft survived the US DOJ over the MSIE vs Netscape then years later just lets their ill gotten gains fall into the hands of Chrome with hardly a fight.

Microsoft at one point simply had the superior product, it didn't crash as much, displayed pages faster and was at the top of their game and slowly but surely started giving up market share to Firefox and then Chrome as they seem to have lost their way.

Not only that, MSIE quickly got the reputation for being the least secure option, while Chrome is deemed the most secure, which is why the corporations still standardizing on MSIE is a bit mind boggling.

I'm starting to wonder if we'd even notice if Microsoft suddenly vanished from the desktop landscape altogether as we could switch to Ubuntu, Open Office and Chrome/GMail or Firefox/Thunderbird and just keep doing business as normal without dropping a stitch.

Corporations standardise on it because its less work: if you install Windows you have IE, and I gather it has better centralised admin. Whether this is a great approach to what is now an essential tool for many jobs is questionable.

A nice three way split between the big three is probably best for the rest of us. Um, FF could do a little better.

The other thing noticeable about the numbers is that Webkit is now easily the leading rendering engine - well ahead of Trident.

I agree, lately i get the feeling the guys at Microsoft are fast asleep.

My default browser for more then 15 years, IE, has become way too slow, way too buggy plus no more updates for my xp systems. WTF?

I switched to full on Firefox (with ad blocker plus installed) about a month ago and never looked back. Ho my god, what the hell was i missing... it is fast it is slick and makes IE (8 & 9) simply look and feel dated.

As to Chrome. I refuse to use any of Google products, let alone install them on any of my systems. Regardless of how good they might be. I also advise my clients the same.

Unfortunately i must agree that Microsoft and their slow dated product are fast becoming dinosaurs. They really need to wake up now and fast!

I see the same factual happenings, but I don't put nearly as sinister an interpretation on them. Years ago, people were bashing and mistrusting Microsoft in the same way. Seems like someone always has to be set up as the "man in the middle" target.

I still haven't turned to Chrome or IE on anything near a regular basis, however. Opera serves me just fine!

An opinion shared by a number of trade commissions including the US FTC and the EU TC, plus many other privacy and data protecting agencies.

To put things in perspective...Microsoft was accused of disadvantaging a small number of hardware manufacturers and several software producers. G is accused of disadvantaging millions of businesses around the world. G is also accused of compromising the privacy of many hundreds of millions of users around the world.

I want to do a lot more reading before I take a stance on this issue, but I will say that the EU Justice Commissioner's arguments, as presented in that article, had a number of logical fallacies. For example, she pointed out that many policies are not read because they are long, complicated, and written in small print, and conveniently ignored the fact that "G"'s new policy is none of those things. She spoke in generalizations, like saying how many citizens were concerned, without specifying what they were concerned about - G? Internet privacy? Privacy in general? She took issue with the fact that users had agreed to a different policy when they signed up, but failed to mention that G's thorough announcement made it nearly impossible for those users to be unaware of the policy change. Finally, she implied that users were being forced into this agreement, which just seems absurd considering that everybody has access to alternatives to G's (mostly free) services.

Of course, none of that has any bearing on whether G is actually wrong in what they are doing, and I need to read more before I fully understand that issue. Thank you for lending your perspective.

Surf the web without an ad blocker, or simply hit a page with an embedded googlemap, +buttons, anlytics or youtube videos (just to name a few *free* services) and you are "forced" into that agreement.

Buy an iphone or any other mobile device (with android installed) and you are "Forced" into that agreement. You *can not* change the default search engine on these mobile devices.

Joe public have no clue they are being played and *forced* into this agreement.

It takes a lot of reading and many many years of experience in a wide range of IT topics (from software producing, web publishing to hardware) to fathom the full extant of this very ugly picture... it is cancer of the worse kind and its about time we start treat it that way.

I see the commodity price of tinfoil surged after this thread made the front page.

The simple truth is Google, just like Microsoft, or the President for that matter, is just an easy target to blame and vilify everything happening in the world on them.

Which has absolutely nothing to do with Chrome overtaking MSIE.

Fact is a superior product is taking hold and the only way to reverse that trend is to fix MSIE to once again, be the best of breed. Additionally, MS needs to get a decent foothold in mobile which is the current driving force, and they have nothing, squat.

MS's new slogan should be "Windows 8. Too Little, Too Late."

is there any money in IE? how do they actually make money with it.

Originally, by MS attempting to make MSIE an integral part of the OS they were attempting to lock everyone into MS Windows and other tightly integrated MS products, that was the first hook.

Then of course if your browser is integrated into the OS then your search engine obviously becomes the default home page in that browser, which means ads for MS Bing customers are seen before any others.

That's why the EU started jumping up and down hissing and spitting because MS basically controlled the entire food chain from OS to advertiser. Of course now that Google is attempting to do the same thing with Chrome OS, and they didn't even invent this trick, people are jumping up and down again. However, nobody has even mentioned making Chrome OS offer alternative browsers or search engines, funny that.

Truth is people really don't want choices. They want appliances. Things that simply come out of the box, turn on, and work the first time. If people wanted choices they could've bought Apple with Safari or got Ubuntu with Firefox, nobody twisted their arms to buy hardware pre-loaded with MS products but it's seen as a turnkey appliance.

Funny, my PlayStation or Wii (maybe both) has Opera and I can't even buy a replacement for it, similar situation with the new TV loaded with apps. Android phones all come with Google browsers and SEs out of the box and nobody cares. Likewise, iPhones and iPads, clearly market leaders, all come with Safari by default. However, get to the desktop computer, which for 99% of the planet is just as much an appliance as the smart phone or tablet, and suddenly they must have choices, it's mandated nonsense.

IMO it's all these appliances that will end up dictating the dominant browser because the desktop is rapidly shifting to mobile computing for many people, tablet at a minimum, and they tend to want to use the same tools on all devices when possible.

What that means is that currently, Safari and Chrome have the home team advantage by dominating the mobile market and MS, not having a good showing in mobile, is rapidly losing that customer base.

Even more amusing is many still snub the mobile market and don't even realize what a game changer it's become and is far more than trend setting at this point, as mobile is practically running the show.

It will be interesting to see which browser clearly dominates in a year or two. I'm thinking the market will get more fractured with new upstarts like Dolphin, which I love, and it'll level out with with more big players as they grab market share.

Microsoft was accused of disadvantaging a small number of hardware manufacturers and several software producers. G is accused of disadvantaging millions of businesses around the world

Not really. The reason we have competition laws is to protect consumers. Those actions made the market less competitive, disadvantaging BILLIONS of consumers around the world.

However, nobody has even mentioned making Chrome OS offer alternative browsers or search engines, funny that

That is because Chrome OS does not have the market share Windows has. When it does it will face the same. Also, as Chrome OS is open source, is there anything stopping vendors substituting a different browser, or installing multiple browsers?

Those actions made the market less competitive, disadvantaging BILLIONS of consumers around the world.

Yes, "BILLIONS" were unable to run a stable version of Netscape... lol.

Well there was certainly no sign of Microsoft disadvantaging BILLIONS of consumers. The complete opposite actually. Microsoft brought the internet to the masses and the PC to almost every home and with that came a huge choice of browsers and millions upon millions of new software applications and online services/businesses...but hey don't let the facts confuse you.

MS also held back Opera (easily the best browser back then), blocked BeoS (probably the best desktop IS at the time), deliberately stopped Windows from running on DR-DOS and slowed down a host of other technologies.

The evidence is that a competitive free market is best for competitors, rather than a centrally controlled monopoly (which is why the Soviet Union failed). Making a market uncompetitive can be assumed to be bad for consumers unless proved otherwise (which rarely happens)

Far from bringing the internet to the masses MS regarded it as a fad and MSN was originally meant to be an ALTERNATIVE to the internet. We are lucky MS failed or there would be no websites for us to discuss.

I can remember people in the 90s arguing that most users did not need the internet because MSN was enough for them.

Personal Computers were appearing in every home without MS. Lots of people and organisations played their part, many key pioneers of are now forgotten (although some, like Apple, are still around). MS largely just did what everyone else was doing anyway.

OSes would have advanced much faster if there was more competition. Remember the complete lack of progress in the years IE was dominant? It took MS about a decade just to copy tabbed browsing from Opera! Have you noticed that office software advanced very rapidly while there were three major competitors, but did not change very much for a long time after MS came out on top (although its started moving again thanks to emerging threats).

I've been tracking the rise of Chrome on [marketshare.hitslink.com ] for a while. Chrome's day is coming. The Android version is pretty good too and as for Microsoft getting a foothold in mobile... (ok slightly off topic here), a friend of mine switched from Android to Windows phone and sent it back a week later switching back to Android.. what does that say?